Dardenne Leadership Institute is a 9-month co-mentoring and empowerment model where we invite young adults to join us as we nurture, encourage, and partner with them. They will explore God's call on their life and exercise their spiritual gifts while serving as members of our church community. We plan to create a community of young adults who will participate in this program to develop their faith, their identity as a child of God, and their leadership skills. 

 

This is an evangelistic strategy to reach the largest unreached people group in the United States: young adults. It is an incredible opportunity for our church to be a part of opening the church in a new way for young adults who no longer feel like they belong in the church. 

The goal for each Fellow is to have them involved in the life of the church. This program has three major components. The first is active participation in the church. We ask that each Fellow serves a minimum of 10 hours per week in a ministry so that they can develop their leadership skills, so they can discern how God moves in and through a church, and so they can experience the love and support of Dardenne Presbyterian Church. As they serve here through DLI, we are committing to walk alongside them, pray for them, and guide them as they pursue their faith and live it out. The second component is mentorship. We have a team of people who are ready, willing, and able to mentor each Fellow one on one. The mentoring will help them grow in their faith (we believe we are not meant to pursue faith on our own), and it will help them grow in their leadership and faith as these mentors are men and women in our church family who have experience leading, serving, and pursing their faith and they want to share that with the Fellows. The third component includes enrollment in two seminary classes through Fuller Theological Seminary taught by Rev. Dr. Chap Clark. These classes are designed to help the Fellows grow in their faith and leadership in a formal and practical manner.

Not only will they serve the ministry of the church, but they will be a part of the mission of the Kingdom as they learn about the church and serve the church in a way that the average young adult does not have ordinarily have access.  

There is an opportunity for a couple Fellows to be involved in the residential program – this would have them working in the church full time for 9 months as they explore God’s call on their life. The primary difference between this option and the above is the volunteer hours – rather than serving for 10 hours a week, we would be asking for 40 hours a week. For the first track we will financially provide the Fuller classes. For this second track we would pay a stipend in addition to the Fuller classes